On her head, the bride wore a veil adorned with a pale white and cream spray of what appear to be French wax and glass flowers and green silk leaves that would later decorate some of her own daughter’s wedding attire.

Julia’s "high style" wedding dress is one of 13 currently on display at the Franklin Historical Museum through the end of July. It is the most antique of the gowns, which brides wore from 1893 through 1993.

Historical Commission members Connie Lawson and Colette Ferguson are behind the wedding dress exhibit, painstakingly cleaning the delicate fabrics, making careful and discreet repairs when needed, sometimes reproducing missing or disintegrated pieces, making sure labels are accurate and putting everything on display.

"One of the problems we have is these mannequins we have, and trying to get some of these dresses to fit on them," said Lawson while giving a tour of the display.

Stopping in front of Julia’s dress, she pointed. "Here’s this bride with an 18-inch waist," she said, adding with a chuckle, "I was born with an 18-inch waist."

The dress, she said, was just laying around in a box "and nobody in the family wanted it," she said, so it, and the dress Julia made for her daughter, Florence May, for her wedding to Edward John Murphy on Feb. 21, 1935, came into the care of the Franklin Historical Museum.

Julia’s dress came with a fading portrait of the bride elegantly seated on a sofa, her train spilling into a carefully arranged pool on the rug at her feet.

"When we looked at the picture, we saw there were all these layers of lace on the bodice that had disintegrated. So I went and got some lace to add, and colored it with tea bags to give it that vintage look," said Ferguson.

Often, she said, a bride might have used part of her dress or her headpiece to make something new for her own daughter’s wedding, and some of the lace and artifical flowers from Julia’s dress and veil did go onto Florence May’s cloche hat in 1935.

There is some division of labor between Lawson and Ferguson. When antique garments need cleaning, Lawson takes on the challenge, while Ferguson does more of the mending and reproduction of missing or damaged parts.

Page 2 of 2 - One of the dresses is a Priscilla of Boston piece donated to the museum by Nancy Dyer of Ashland, worn for a July 17, 1954 wedding with a sprinkling of pale blue appliqué flowers over the bodice and skirt.

"The Priscilla of Boston one is very unusual. It was very discolored when it came to us. So it was given to Connie," said Ferguson. "Connie took it home and washed it again and again."

Lawson explained she uses special restoration detergent that is gentle on antique fabrics. "It’s all about hand washing, mostly soaking," she said.

Often garments come to the museum in plastic bags or aging boxes, and the fabrics need some long-overdue TLC.

"And a lot of the time the headdresses and veils have gone," said Ferguson. "I’m very handy with a needle and thread so I’ve tried to reproduce the veils and head pieces."

She makes small repairs as well. "I try not to do too much. If I see there’s a seam open, I’ll sew it, but I try not to interfere too much," said Ferguson.

The two women, who are the ones other commission members turn to when it comes to handling vintage garments, said they would both like to take a course in textile conservation. They are keenly aware that each garment represents a story, and is a frozen-in-time reminder of a special occasion.

"Sometimes they come in with pictures and we say ‘that’s not the same dress!’ You can see someone redid the bodice or the skirt. It’s fun to think these were dresses with a couple of histories," said Lawson.

A 1940s dress on display has a favorite story behind it: It was made from the voluminous white silk expanse of a Japanese parachute the bride’s groom, a soldier, sent home for his intended to fashion into a wedding gown – a significant gift at a time when such finery was most certainly difficult to come by and probably quite expensive.

The women said they would like to expand the wedding exhibit in the future to include other items – perhaps the grooms’ outfits, or those worn by members of the bridal parties. And they would be thrilled with better mannequins on which to display garments, and any expertise anyone may have to offer about the care and conservation of antique textiles.

Visit the museum Thursday evenings from 5 to 8 p.m., Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. or Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m. The Franklin Historical museum is located at 80 West Central St. (Rte. 140).